Left on Labrador Part 41

'Twas a sight to do a fellow's eyes good.

"Boys, this is hunky!"

"Well, ain't it, captain?"

"You're all there, aren't ye? Well, how do you do?" helping us over the rail. "You don't look as if you had starved."

"Starved?--no! Catch us starving! We've got a whole tribe to back us.

But Bonney, old boy, what's the matter with your arm?" exclaimed Kit.

"Oh! nothing very bad," replied Bonney, laughing and looking to the captain.

"Splinter hit him," said Capt. Mazard significantly.

"You don't say!" Kit exclaimed. "Did they come so near you as that?"

"So near's that!" bl.u.s.tered old Trull. "Guess you'd 'a' said so! Why, look at the after-bulwarks! and look at the windla.s.s!"

The taffrail was gone, sure enough, and the stern bulwarks broken and patched up down to the deck. The windla.s.s was torn up too.

"Whew!" from all of us.

"Only one shot hit us," explained the captain. "Glanced up from the water through the stern, knocked up the taffrail, and then went forward: just missed the mast, but hit the windla.s.s. Haven't been able to anchor since."

"Well, I'll be blamed!" exclaimed Wade. "Hurt you much, Bonney?"

"Broke his arm!" said the captain.

"You don't say so!"

"Yes, sir. But we've set it; and it's doing well, I think."

"Well, you must have been short-handed here!" cried Donovan.

"Bet you, we have been! Had to have Palmleaf on deck half the time.

We've made quite a sailor of him."

We all praised the darky. Even Wade cried, "Well done, old s...o...b..ll!

How's that under your wool?"

"I tinks," said the negro, grinning all over, "dat dis am a bery j'yful 'casion!"

"So 'tis!"

"But how far did they chase you?" Raed inquired.

"Clean out into the Atlantic," replied Capt. Mazard. "I should have given them a circular race about that ice-island where we were when 'The Rosamond' fired into us; but the tide has broken up the ice there now. We've come back just as quick as we could. But how have you fared? Why, I've had dismal fears of finding only one or two of you alive, devouring the bodies of the rest."

We thereupon gave the captain a brief account of our sojourn on the island, and how we had managed the Huskies.

"That only demonstrates that you are natural-born sovereign Yankees,"

remarked the captain, laughing heartily.

"But you must come ash.o.r.e and see our _subjects_!" exclaimed Kit.

"I'll do it!"

"But not before you've ben ter brackfus', sar?" said Palmleaf. "Coffee all hot, sar."

"Bully for you, Palmleaf!" shouted Weymouth. "Don't care if I do!"

"It seems an age since I last tasted coffee," said Raed.

That we did justice to Palmleaf's coffee and b.u.t.tered m.u.f.fins I have no need to a.s.sure the reader.

Breakfast over, we went back to our island, taking the captain along, and Hobbs in the place of Weymouth. The savages were gathered on the sh.o.r.e, watching the _oomiak-sook_ rather disconsolately; for, roughly as we had used them, I think they had somehow gotten up a regard for us. Seeing us coming toward the sh.o.r.e again, they began to shout and hop about in a most extravagant manner. Landing, we sent the boat back after the iron, knives, flannel, etc. We then took the captain with us to see their huts and our walrus-skin tent. We had thoughts of taking the hides away with us; but as they were very heavy, and withal emitted a rather disagreeable odor, we finally gave them to _Shug-la-wina_. Our _spider_, off which we had eaten so many fried eggs and broiled ducks, we left set in our arch.

The captain was formally presented to _Wutchee_ and _Wunchee_, and bowed very low. Their little black eyes sparkled; but, at a nod from Kit, they bowed in turn,--lower than the captain even: so that, on the whole, the ceremony was a rather grotesque one.

"But, my stars!" exclaimed Capt. Mazard, turning to us. "Which is which? Twins, to a dead certainty!"

"_Bi-coit-suk_," replied Wade.

Shortly after, we went back to the beach, making signs for them all to follow, which they did; our fair twins smiling on the arms of two of our party, whose names we forbear to give. The boat had come. A general distribution of presents was the next thing in order. To each of the men we gave a long bar of iron. Their exclamations of surprise and delight were only surpa.s.sed by those of the women when we gave them each two yards of red flannel. We next gave to each one of them a jack-knife; then to each one of the women a butcher-knife, for cutting up their seals. They were in ecstasies. Kit then gave a hatchet to each man and each boy. Raed gave to _Shug-la-wina_ an extra knife for one of his dog-whips, which he wished to keep for a curiosity; and Kit gave to little _Twee-gock_ an extra knife and hatchet for the walrus-tusk dagger with which he had tried to stab him. The little dark chap was too much astonished at that to do anything but stare.

The boat was then sent back after a load of four-foot wood, and returned, bringing each one a stick. Nothing else seemed wanting to make the poor creatures regard us as objects worthy of wors.h.i.+p.

Meanwhile the pretty twins, and also _Igloo-ee_ and _Coo-nee_, were not forgotten by any means. Kit and Wade had brought off for each of them a green pea-jacket; which, considering the fact that they wore jackets, were not incongruous gifts. Then there were scarfs, scarf-pins, and big darning-needles; in short, a most munificent variety of presents: for though we must needs p.r.o.nounce Kit and Wade a trifle unscrupulous in their way of getting possession of the island, yet they were now princely in their generosity.

The captain now got into the boat: Raed and I followed him. Wade turned to the girls, pointing to himself, then off to the schooner, and, shaking his head, said, "_Annay, annay!_" Kit did the same. They then both shook hands with them, shaking their heads all the time very mournfully, and still repeating the sad "_Annay!_" It is no poetic fiction to add, that the little black eyes of the pretty savages were glistening with tears. Kit and Wade then got into the boat, and we shoved off amid sorrowful cries from the entire group.

"Hold on a bit!" said Raed. "I like to observe them now their feelings are wrought upon."

The sailors stopped rowing, and the boat was allowed to lie at about twenty yards from the beach, while Wade sang "Dixie" in his rich, clear voice. We then waved our hands to them slowly and sorrowfully.

Immediately little _Coo-nee_, with _Wutchee_ and _Wunchee_ and _Igloo-ee_, took their white bird-skin gloves from their boots, and drew them on. Then, coming down where the waves touched their feet, they raised their hands slowly, and began a low, clear chant. At the end of what appeared to be a stanza, the group on the sh.o.r.e behind them joined in a sort of chorus resembling the words _Amna-ah-ya, amna-amna-ah-ya_. The girls then began another stanza, extending their hands downward toward the sea, waving them slowly to and fro together.

The chorus was then repeated. Their hands and faces were next directed, during a third stanza, to the west; then toward the far east. Finally they raised them to the sky, and, chanting clear and earnestly, seemed to be imploring the blessing of Heaven on us now departing from them over the wild seas. Kit took off his cap; and we all followed his example, as if impelled to it. It was really an affecting incident. Our hardy captain is not a soft-hearted man; but I saw him wipe a tear from his eye as the chant ceased. I have not sought to color the picture. There was a wonderful pathos about it. We had not heard the song before; and I am inclined to believe it _extempore_,--one of those musical efforts which persons in what we term the savage state will sometimes make when their feelings are touched by new and strange influences. Even after the song had ceased, the girls, as if under its spell, stood holding out their white hands to us. I can hardly express how much we were moved by it all. Farewell is, as we all know, a hard word to say. But we were leaving them forever; and the dark storm-clouds, the icy sea, and snowy ledges, seemed a pitiless fate for those whose voices had such power to touch our feelings. What if they were savage Huskies: they had human hearts, with all the beautiful possibilities of souls that might be made undying.

"Give 'way!" ordered the captain.

We went off with them gazing sadly after us in silence. Kit and Wade were in the bow, talking.

"Why need we leave them here?" I overheard Wade ask.

"Oh, nonsense, Wade!" said Kit.

"But to leave them to the cruel elements!" Wade whispered.

"Yes--I know--but they're happier here than they would be--in--in some great cotton-factory at home."

"Too true," Wade sighed, and fell to softly whistling "Dixie."